Stray dogs are eating the dead in the streets of northern Gaza, emergency services chief says

Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic material that some readers may find disturbing.

Bodies strewn across dusty streets, entire roads destroyed by Israeli strikes, people starving. This is the picture painted of Jabalya, northern Gaza, by the emergency services chief in the area.

“You can see the signs of hunger on the people in northern Gaza,” Fares Afana, the head of emergency services in northern Gaza, told CNN by phone on Monday. “Israeli forces are destroying everything that represents life or signs of life.”

Afana told CNN that he and his colleagues have received the bodies of Palestinians killed in northern Gaza, with some showing signs of scavenging by animals, which has stifled efforts to identify the deceased.

“Stray dogs who are hungry are eating these bodies in the street… It makes it difficult for us to identify the bodies,” he said.

He shared a photo with CNN showing the remains of a young boy whose body he said was fed on by stray dogs.

Afana said that there are “thousands of children” and pregnant women stuck in the besieged area, where the Israeli military has carried out aerial and ground attacks in three neighborhoods over the past 12 days.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it is targeting Hamas’ renewed presence there.

At least 50,000 people have been displaced from the Jabalya area, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported on Sunday. The 400,000 who remain in northern Gaza are stalked by hunger and face thunderous bombardment.

The UN has accused the Israeli military of forcing residents of northern Gaza to choose between starvation or relocation.

“Civilians are given no choice but to either starve or leave,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), said in a statement on Monday. “In Gaza, too many red lines have been crossed. What might constitute war crimes can still be prevented.”

The Israeli agency that manages the flow of aid into Gaza said that 30 trucks entered the north on Monday, insisting that Israel “is not preventing the entry of humanitarian aid.”

Afana said that on Monday Israeli forces had fired on hungry residents searching for food at a warehouse aid center run by UNRWA. “The situation is getting worse,” he said.

UNRWA said that an artillery attack at its Jabalya food distribution center on Monday reportedly killed at least 10 people and injured another 40.

CNN has asked the IDF for comment.

“For the paramedics, it is also very dangerous to reach this area… as a result of the roads being blown up and direct fire from the Israeli military on our vehicles,” Afana said.

He said ambulances had been hit by shrapnel from Israeli artillery shelling near Yemen al-Sa’eed Hospital, in Jabalya, sharing a video of the aftermath that showed an ambulance with crushed tires and bullet marks.

“What is happening in northern Gaza is a real genocide,” he added. “We can’t do our job normally.”

CNN has asked the IDF about Afana’s allegations that emergency vehicles had been fired on by the Israeli military.

At least 342 Palestinians have been killed in parts of northern Gaza since the Israeli operations started earlier this month, Gaza’s Government Media Office reported on Monday, adding that hundreds of “civilians, children and women” have been injured. On Tuesday, at least 17 people were killed in northern Gaza, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense.

Israeli bulldozers in Jabalya have turned swathes of the once-lively refugee camp into a maze of demolished streets, according to a resident of the besieged neighborhood.

“The scenes, sounds and smells of the invasion are extremely violent,” Abdul Karim Al-Zuwaidi, a journalist working for Al Ghad TV, told CNN in a voice message on Tuesday. The sound of bombardment rumbled overhead, in one of several voice notes heard by CNN.

“The question is where and how can the people leave?” the 23-year-old Palestinian man added. “The place they remain in, despite all the destruction, consists of simple tents they set up from the rubble of their homes. Where will the people go?”

Al-Zuwaidi accused the Israeli military of firing on civilians attempting to flee the north at the Abu Sharkh roundabout in Jabalya, as CNN and others have previously reported. CNN reached out to the IDF for comment at the time.

Before the war, children lined the alleyways of Jabalya refugee camp and families gathered to celebrate Islamic holidays, including Ramadan, Al-Zuwaidi recalled.

“Jabalya camp was very beautiful, full of local markets and bustling with people. It was peaceful and secure,” he added. “Now, the camp is nothing but ashes.

“We used to sit in the alleyways there, play with the children, and organize activities and festivals for the kids… These are memories that can never be relived.”